


on the care and feeding of abbey wolfhounds

by patho (ghostsoldier)



Series: what we talk about when we talk about whalers [4]
Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dysfunctional Family, Forced Prostitution, Gen, Harm to Children, Human Trafficking, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Game(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 06:50:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1183161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostsoldier/pseuds/patho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Smith has an errant mind. Reynolds gets caught in the crossfire.</p><p>See tags and/or notes for warnings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	on the care and feeding of abbey wolfhounds

**Author's Note:**

> **Anonymous asked: In your Reynolds headcanon chapter there is this snippet: "The one person he’s not a dick to is Smith. And if other people want to be a dick to Smith? Reynolds will shoot them in the fucking face." I really really want to know the story behind that please.**
> 
>  
> 
> For some background on Smith, it may help to read ‘[the wandering and the lost](http://archiveofourown.org/works/579438)’ and ‘[on smith](http://archiveofourown.org/works/601800/chapters/1084943)’. Anon’s question refers to ‘[on reynolds, redux](http://archiveofourown.org/works/601800/chapters/1122503)’. Since this takes place well before the events of the game, Billie isn’t part of the gang yet, no one wears masks (I have Thoughts about this, but this isn’t the time), and Daud is much more of an unrepentant _dick_ than he is by the time we see him in Dishonored proper. Big thanks to [thegrimparticulars](http://thegrimparticulars.tumblr.com) for coming up with the Bleeding Dogfish as a gang name. I got a lot of excellent suggestions, but that one spoke to me.
> 
> WARNINGS: references to child abuse, sex abuse, human trafficking, and forced prostitution; references to post-traumatic stress in which one character experiences flashbacks and psychological trauma that is poorly understood by other characters; exploitation of one character’s damaged emotional state by others.

On his free afternoons, Reynolds gathers his collection of allocated and personal weapons and hightails it to a roof or one of the common areas. When you go high enough their current base overlooks the wide muddy expanse of the Wrenhaven, and it reminds Reynolds of his days on the trawler, way back when he was a dim wet-behind-the-ears kid from Caulkenny. But today there’s too much fog to appreciate the view, and so instead he heads for the balcony they’ve claimed as common area. If nothing else it overlooks the training yard, and that, at least, makes for some damn good entertainment.

A few of the other Whalers are already up there, doing their own weapon repairs or watching the training below with no small amount of interest. Most of them wear the blue leathers of Daud's master assassins, a designation which, as far as Reynolds can tell, seems to be connected more to overall skill than seniority. There are young masters among the gang, and older novices; on more than one occasion Montgomery’s mentioned he expects Reynolds’ll make master once his tethering improves, which is a development Reynolds can get behind. He couldn't give two shits about leading a squad, but the slight pay bump would be nice. Plus, you get first pick of the beds when Daud inevitably demands they drop everything to find new headquarters. Sometimes, the minor shit’s what matters most.

Up among the hodgepodge collection of stolen furniture that comprises their common room, Reynolds drops down with a small cluster of the others and unrolls his knife collection over the scarred wood table, cranes his neck to see what's caught their interest down in the yard. One of the men -- a novice, judging by the gray-green of his uniform -- is taking the other trainees apart with neat and terrifying precision, leaving one after the other groaning in the dirt without so much as breaking a sweat. It’s a fucking _impressive_ display of skill, the man unerringly blending his hand-to-hand techniques with the dulled training blades and their creepy-ass borrowed powers, and Reynolds utters a long, low whistle of appreciation when the last man finally falls and the victor's left standing alone with his head bowed and his hands at his sides.

"Shit," Reynolds says. Knives utterly forgotten in the face of the whirlwind he’d witnessed in the yard below. "The fuck is that guy doin’ in novice colors? That didn't even take five minutes."

One of the other Whalers, Carmichael, blinks as if noticing Reynolds for the first time. "You're joking, right?"

"Do I look like I'm joking?" Reynolds drops his attention to his knife-roll for a moment and tests the blade of the first few against this thumb. Considers his whetstone before selecting the sharpening steel in its place. "Pretty sure a few of the lads he just took out were masters. Don’t know what you lot call it, but I call it finesse."

Carmichael just snorts. “Call it whatever fancy word you like,” he says. “I call it _Smith_ , and Daud would sooner pledge fealty to the Abbey than promote him.”

He offers no further explanation, but none is needed -- Reynolds knows Smith, or rather, he knows _of_ Smith. Most of the novices do. Finder Smith, the former Overseer. He’s hardly the only one among their number but he’s certainly one of the strangest, keeping himself apart from the others and rarely joining the drinking or joking sessions. He goes to bed painfully late and rises painfully early, stays in the practice yard long after everyone else has called it good. With his calm, soft voice and his calm, flat eyes, he’s, well…unsettling, and in their group that’s saying something. Reynolds has even heard him reciting the Strictures once or twice, and has yet to make up his mind whether that makes the man ballsy or flat-out _crazy_.

After all, Daud’s not particularly subtle when it comes to his thoughts on the Abbey. During Reynolds’ first week as a Whaler, an Overseer managed to track one of their number back to headquarters. Daud promptly cut the man’s throat, then nailed the body above the main entrance outside with a sign around its neck that read, simply, “ROVING FEET.”

A subtle man their boss is not, but Reynolds can’t help but respect his style.

Reynolds glances back into the training yard. The other trainees have gathered the remnants of their wounded dignity, picked themselves up, and cautiously resettled into fighting stances. All of them, that is, except Smith, who easily ducks the clumsy stroke of the assassin sneaking up from his left, whirls to kick the man’s legs out from under him, and promptly blinks across the yard to take the head off a training dummy in a single elegant slash.

“That’s either the greatest or the creepiest thing I ever seen,” Reynolds announces. 

Carmichael sighs. His crossbow is entirely unstrung, and he’s been fiddling with the automatic mechanism since the conversation began. “Tell me about it,” he says.

“Did he really take out a whole squad of Overseers?” Before now, Reynolds always dismissed the story as exaggerated rumor. He learned very quickly there were few things the Whalers loved more than a good story, especially those involving the humiliation of the Abbey, and there was simply no fucking way an Overseer barely over the age of nineteen could’ve slaughtered even a _few_ of his brothers, much less an entire squad. Reynolds has tangled directly with the Overseers exactly once, but once was enough; he’s got a good idea of his own skill and knows he’s a mean, capable fighter, but those Abbey bastards had him outmatched and outmatched but good. 

He was lucky: since he joined up, more than one of their crew’s failed to come back from Abbey-related missions at all. Daud usually gets very quiet when that happens, and then he breaks something, and like clockwork they move headquarters within the week.

Carmichael shrugs. “I have no idea. Gavin says he was with Daud the day he recruited Smith at the port in Pottershead—“

“Yeah, and Gavin’s a damn liar,” Rhys cuts in from the next seat over. He’s got his uniform coat draped over his knees and several pins clamped carefully between his teeth. “’Specially when he’s in his cups.”

“Did I say I believed him?” Carmichael snaps. “He’s the one says he was there, not me. I’ve no reckoning if he was or not.”

“He says Smith was covered in enough blood for four men,” Rhys tells Reynolds. There’s a hushed sort of glee in his voice, akin to the wonder that creeps in when they talk about Daud’s exploits or those of his older and far more advanced master assassins. “Says he was calm as anything. Says he actually bared his throat for Daud’s blade.” 

Well _that’s_ just plain ridiculous. At this point he can maybe swallow the notion of Smith slicing his way through a gang of his zealot brothers, especially if he took ‘em by surprise, but nothing he’s seen in Smith before or now suggests the man would do anything close to giving another combatant an opening like that. Not willingly, anyway.

Carmichael seems to agree, because he sounds distinctly more put out when he adds, “And Gavin’s a damn liar. You said so yourself.”

Down in the practice yard, Smith has reduced the training dummy to messy shreds of wood and straw and burlap. He fights silently, and with the sort of unnerving grace Reynolds is used to seeing among the more dangerous men of Daud’s company. He’s relatively sure Smith is in his early twenties, about Reynolds’ age or maybe a few years older, but the way the man _fights_ \--

The other two are still arguing about the relative veracity of Gavin Sanderson, and whether he’s more or less truthful when he’s drunk off his ass in the middle of a good story. 

“So why won’t Daud promote him?” Reynolds interrupts. “On account of he can’t trust him?”

“He won’t promote him because he’s _not right_ ,” Rhys says. He jerks his head towards the sad remnants of the practice dummy, to Smith standing quietly in the middle of the destruction, seemingly lost now he has nothing left to fight. “You think he wants a man like that in charge of a squad?”

“He keeps going off half-cocked,” Carmichael adds quietly. “Bad habit of slipping his leash, as it were. He makes for a good attack hound if you point him in the right direction, but he’s certainly not reliable about it.”

“Wait,” Reynolds says, “the fuck’re you talking about?”, but the other man just shakes his head. The expression on his face is an odd one, several parts rueful irritation and one part anticipation. Like this is something they let newcomers find out for themselves, no matter how badly it ends.

“A word of advice,” Rhys says. The trainees below are now avoiding Smith entirely. As Reynolds watches, Smith gathers up the shattered bits of the practice dummy, stacks them in a neat, tidy little heap, and blinks out of the practice yard altogether.

“What’s that?” he says.

“If you’re ever on a mission with him and he tells you to go?”

“Yeah?”

Rhys’s voice is shockingly grim, the lines of his expression harsh and dangerous. “If he tells you to go, then you fucking go, you understand? You _go_.”

Uneasily, Reynolds nods, and goes back to his knives when no further explanation is offered. Carmichael returns to his crossbow. Rhys carries on patching the hole in his leathers. They don’t talk about Smith and Smith never returns to the training yard, and Reynolds is a little disturbed to realize he’s relieved.

*

If he were a man given to introspection, maybe he would’ve asked around a little more after that. Found out what the fuck Rhys was talking about, needled Gavin Sanderson into clarifying the tricky little issue of whether Smith actually gave his throat to Daud’s blade the first time they met. But Reynolds is a man who prefers the practical to the hypothetical, and truth of the matter is, he was already avoiding Smith anyway. The man made for interesting gossip during idle hours when their hands were otherwise occupied, but beyond the conversation around the practice yard Reynolds spares him little thought. No time for it, not with the schedule Daud’s got them on.

And he would’ve gone on not-thinking about Smith, perhaps indefinitely, if not for the roster of assignments handed out just a few weeks later. 

They’re gathered in the mess, or the room that passes as one. Reynolds slouches on his bench and listens with half an ear as Montgomery drones through the list of patrols and guard assignments. He doesn’t hear his own name, which means he’s more than likely being sent out on a mission.

Good, he thinks. Perks up when Montgomery finishes and steps back to post the list to the wall, clearing the way for their boss. All this sitting around was making his fingers itchy.

Daud’s briefings are always short and to the point. If the job’s a complicated one requiring a full squad, he simply names the squad leader and tells them to meet him after the briefing’s over. Reynolds, still new and raw enough that he hasn’t been assigned to one of the squad leaders, leans forward with his elbows on his knees, eagerly waiting for the moment he catches his own name. While he’s hoping for a solo job it’s more likely he’ll be paired, but that’s fine. The work tends to be straightforward -- follow that person, steal that thing, track down that bounty -- and it’ll be a good opportunity to prove himself.

He doesn’t move when he hears his name, but twitches with faint surprise when Smith’s is called just after. Their assignment’s simple enough: they just need to follow their target long enough to determine if he’s actually the man Daud’s employer plans to extort (and if he has a good reason for doing so), or if Daud’s better off dropping the contract as an expensive goose chase. Reynolds could do this sort of thing in his sleep.

He darts a quick glance across the room. Smith looks like he’s standing at attention, one of those weird freaky habits all the ex-Overseers have yet to shake, his pale eyes fixed firm and calm on Daud as he speaks, and in the back of his mind Reynolds hears, “He makes for a good attack hound if you point him in the right direction, but he’s certainly not reliable about it,” and all the prickly little hairs at the nape of his neck stand on end.

Daud winds down and hands off the list to Montgomery to post next to the patrol assignments. Smith blinks, once, and then swivels his gaze to meet Reynolds’ stare head-on. His expression is the smooth, tranquil calm of a lulled sea, muted and scarily _blank_.

_”If he tells you to go, you fucking go, you understand? You **go**.”_

An entire squad of Whalers groaning in the dirt without so much as ruffling Smith’s hair. The shattered remains of a training dummy stacked in a neat and futile pile. A nineteen-year-old covered in the blood of men who’d trusted him, tilting his head back to expose his throat to an enemy’s blade. Reynolds looks at Smith and Smith looks right back, and for the first time since joining Daud’s gang he’s left with the unsettling impression that the man meeting his eyes could kill him just as easy as breathing. It’s--

It’s not exactly a good feeling.

“Let’s just get this over with,” he grunts once the meeting’s broken up and the group’s spread out and remixed according to the assignments handed out. “We got plenty of daylight left. We go now, we’ll get eyes on our man for sure.”

Smith hums his assent, doesn’t look at him. Reynolds scowls. “Eyes only,” he says. “You heard the boss. We follow. We don’t engage.”

“Of course,” Smith says, serene as ever, and Reynolds knows he should be reassured but all he keeps hearing is _”bad habit of slipping his leash, as it were”_ and it’s making him edgy as shit. 

He will not fucking die for this man. Not now, not ever. 

*

Reynolds would be the last to call himself a chatty person, but to his utter dismay he realizes Smith’s brand of silence is one that makes him deeply uneasy. He’s got an annoying habit of moving just outside of Reynolds’ peripheral vision and Reynolds can barely hear the man _breathe_ , and after less than two hours in Smith’s company Reynolds feels like he’s going to jump out of his own skin for fear he’s about to get stabbed in the back.

“You wanna knock shit that off?” he snaps, after Smith scouts ahead only to blink back somewhere behind him for maybe the fifth time in a row. There’s a faint, leathery rustle, and a puzzled-looking Smith appears just off his right.

“Sorry,” he says.

“Don’t apologize,” Reynolds says through gritted teeth. “Just quit it, all right? Don’t fuckin’--” _get behind me_ is what he planned to say, but Smith’s eyebrows crease and his face falls even further and he says, very softly, “I’ve watched you fight. You have a tendency to leave your right flank unprotected,” and the rest of Reynolds’ sentence dies unsaid.

“And so you were...what?” he says. “Pickin’ up my slack?”

Smith’s throat clicks when he swallows. “We’re a team,” he says, as if that answers the question. “It’s -- I mean. We’re a team.”

Quieter and quieter with every word, until he’s almost inaudible. Outsider’s eyes, Reynolds thinks, suddenly tired. He didn’t sign up for this.

“Fine,” he grumbles. “Cover my right if that’s what you gotta do. Just, I dunno. Make some noise or something so I know where you are.”

Smith still looks confused, but at least the expression isn’t overlaid with ten weirdly unnerving shades of guilt and shame and sadness anymore. He starts to protest, but trails off with a frustrated sigh when Reynolds cuts his hand through the air in the Whalers’ universal _shut the fuck up!_ signal. He looks irritated but he stops arguing, and that’s the important thing.

They travel mainly by rooftop, using short line-of-sight transversals instead of long-distance ones. Those are tougher to manage with an unfamiliar team, what with the issues of agreed-upon locations and timing, and when they stick to shorter distances it’s easier to keep eyes on their target, some noble by the name of Linus Rackham. For a man who excuses himself to recite the Seven Strictures every morning Smith sure seems comfortable with his powers, but Reynolds doesn’t know him well enough to rely on him if things go sour.

The sun’s making its slow march towards the horizon as they follow Rackham’s carriage on a meandering path towards the riverdocks. When painted in pink and gold like this, the Dunwall skyline is much prettier than it has any right to be. The effect is a bit ruined by the wet brackish stink of the Wrenhaven, but Reynolds doesn’t care; the rooftops are _their_ place, chimneys and balconies and slate roof tiles beneath their feet, rattling ductwork and elegant street lamps, heart-stopping drops into the alleyways below. Smith still hangs back to his right, but Reynolds can hear his footfalls now. The feeling’s reassurance now instead of threat. 

Smith abruptly blinks into existence atop a chimney fifteen feet ahead, then reappears in a rush of air next to Reynolds a moment later.

“Rackham’s just ahead,” he says. He sounds...off. “He and his companions are speaking with another group of men down by the Dirty Sal at the water’s edge.”

“Huh,” Reynolds says. “Well, let’s take a listen to see if there’s anything worth hearing. Can’t say this has been the most interesting assignment, for all it was easy. If he heads back home after this, I say we call it a night and make our report.”

He starts forward and freezes when Smith’s hand closes around his upper arm, and if he were anyone else Reynolds would’ve had a knife in his shoulder so fast he wouldn’t have time to blink. But he saw how Smith fought down in the yard, and he’s under no illusions which of them would win if it came to blows. He settles for jerking away instead, snarling, “Don’t fuckin’ touch me.”

“You need to leave,” Smith says, quiet and patient and utterly implacable. Reynolds’ blood runs cold.

_”If he tells you to go, you fucking go, you understand?”_

He says, “Why?”

“Because our orders were not to engage.” Smith’s small, peaceful smile is the most unnerving thing he’s ever seen. “And that’s exactly what I plan to do.”

Reynolds isn’t sure what pisses him off more: the words themselves, or the way they make his stomach unhappily fold in on itself. “That’s bullshit,” he rasps. “That is such fucking bullshit. This is the _easiest assignment in the world_ , you pustulent slipnoddy. Why in the Void would you wanna fuck that up?”

From the expression on Smith’s face, he doubts anyone’s actually asked him that before. Probably he’s used to people hightailing off the second he demands it. Smith’s jaw clenches, and the calmness in his eyes has given way to something cold and hard and alien.

“Go and look, then,” he says. Voice tight, as chilly as his pale, pale eyes. “Go and look, and then _leave_.”

Reynolds swallows down the urge to retort, “Don’t tell me what to do,” in favor of blinking ahead to the edge of the roof where Smith respotted their target. Rackham’s down below, just as Smith said he was, distinctive in his frock coat and that stupid fucking hat. His four companions are also still with him -- bodyguards, Reynolds is increasingly sure, what with the broadness of their shoulders and the way they hold themselves, like hounds tensed for a fight. The Dirty Sal idles quietly in the water, manned by a couple’a scruffy gutter-rats. Bleeding Dogfish, judging by their colors. One of them is deep in conversation with Rackham, and another--

“Aw, shit.” Reynolds scrubs a hand over his forehead, heedless of the dirt on his gloves. When he opens his eyes again, the tableau at the docks below still hasn’t changed. “Shit, shit, _shit_.”

From next to him, Smith says, “Yes.”

“If either of those girls is sixteen, I’ll eat my fuckin’ boots.”

“ _Children_ ,” Smith grinds out.

Reynolds feels badly off-kilter, like someone up and changed the rules of the game when he wasn’t paying attention. He knows he’s not a particularly good man -- few of Daud’s people are, seeing as they wouldn’t be working for Daud if they were -- but even he’s got his limits and there’s no fucking way the two girls struggling down below are going anywhere of their own free will. And Dunwall--

Dunwall’s not a good place for girls in that kinda situation. 

Uneasily, he says, “Where d’you think he’s taking ‘em?” The Cat’s the likeliest possibility for a man of Rackham’s station, the issue simply one of money as opposed to sex, but the Cat’s certainly not the only brothel in town. Nor can they rule out him taking the girls himself, or bringing them to some other rich asshole. Shit, for all they know he’s gonna dump ‘em off at the Abbey. Turn them into little blind Sisters, never to be seen again. No matter which way Reynolds turns it over in his head, it never ends well.

“It doesn’t matter where he plans to take them,” Smith says. He looks at Reynolds, looks _through_ Reynolds, and it sounds as though he’s talking from very far away. 

“You need to leave now,” he says, and in the next instant he’s on the docks below, opening the throat of the man who’s holding onto the girls in a shockingly bright spray of arterial blood.

“It’s an ambush!” Rackham cries. “It’s an ambush, we’ve been set up!” and Reynolds doesn’t even pause to think, just blinks down next to the guy and knocks the pistol out of his hand right as he aims for Smith and fires. The bullet goes wide and ricochets off the hull of the Sal. Reynolds elbows their target in the throat. Kicks out his knees. Kicks him again in the ribs until he finally goes down. He ducks when one of the bodyguards takes a swing, and guts the man from belly to sternum while he’s got the opportunity. The air is suddenly thick with the smell of blood and offal.

In his peripheral vision Smith is a whirlwind of knives and blood, dropping Dogfish one after the other. He’s clearly got it handled, so Reynolds concentrates on Rackham and his men. The bodyguards are big but slow, and Reynolds works as quickly as he can, relying on his supernatural maneuverability to keep out of their range and his knives to do the rest. His kills aren’t as clean as he’d like -- big fuckers like them never go down easy -- and he’s covered in gore by the time the last man falls, but when it’s done, it’s _done_. The only one left is Rackham, still gasping for air on the cobblestones even after Reynolds all but crushed his windpipe.

Reynolds marches over and glares down at him. “You stupid fucker,” he snarls. “I’m gonna get in so much trouble for this. And you know what?” He leans down. Meets Rackham’s eyes. Inspects the mindless, stupid terror there before he _grins_. “It was worth it.”

Rackham’s throat opens in a raw, ragged smile. Reynolds waits, watching as the blood drools onto the cobblestones below, and when the flow stops and Rackham’s breathing stills he wipes his blade on the man’s fancy coat and goes to look for Smith.

He finds him staring blankly at the corpse of a Dogfish, making no move to help the two girls who are gamely attempting to free themselves from their bindings. 

“Smith!” Reynolds barks. “For fuck’s sake, why aren’t you--”

Smith looks at Reynolds like he has absolutely no idea who he is, and says, “This is a major trade road. If we want to make it to the coast before they find us, we have to hide the bodies.”

What in the--

“What the _fuck_ are you talking about?” Reynolds says.

“They’ll be coming,” Smith insists, and Reynolds does _not have time for this_ , they’ve got dead bodies everywhere and the Watch will be on its way and there’s also the slight matter of two kidnap victims to attend to. Reynolds crouches to help one of the girls, while the other finally gets her hands free and yanks the dirty cloth gag out of her mouth.

“Who the fuck’re you?” she snaps. A northern Morley brogue, thick with fear and derision and anger. The accent reminds Reynolds of the Caulkenny port girls, the ones who’d shank your kidneys and nab your wallet before you had time to blink, the ones who stole him his first pair of good boots and taught him how to lie his way onto a ship. His chest _aches_.

“Don’t matter,” he replies. The second girl spits out her own gag once her hands are free. Reynolds isn’t sure whether he should help them stand or not, and feels relieved when they simply help each other up instead. “Listen,” he says, “you got family, or…?”

“Who d’you think sold us in the first place, you daft bastard?” the first girl hisses, and the second one, quiet up until this point, takes in the blood and the bodies and the two men still standing, and says, “Now what do we do?”

“A ship,” Smith mutters, “we can find a ship if we make it to the coast, the Abbey won’t be able to touch you after that.”

“Wait, what’s this about the Abbey?” the second girl says. She looks slightly older than the other one, her hair a lighter shade of brown. Reynolds has no idea if they’re sisters or friends or strangers, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is they need to leave, all of them, and it’s becoming increasingly apparent that Smith has gone away somewhere in his head and will be absolutely no help.

“Nothin’,” Reynolds says. “Don’t mind him. He’s just...mixed up is all,” and before he can think better of it he presses a knife into each of their hands. Considers adding one of the discarded pistols littering the docks, then decides against it; if they’re not used to shooting, they’re more likely to take off their own fingers than an enemy’s head. The first girl frowns at her new weapon, while the second makes a face and wipes the blood on the torn fabric of her skirts. Neither tries to give the knives back.

“Listen up,” Reynolds says. “Pointy bit goes in the other guy. Aim for something squishy. Don’t go for the head or the ribs, else the blade’s liable to get stuck. You’re fucked if that happens.”

“I know my way around a knife,” says the younger girl, with a gleam in her eye that means she’s probably telling the truth. The older one is a bit more pragmatic. “But where do we _go_?” she says, and Reynolds wants to kick something because he doesn’t _know_ , he doesn’t fucking know, he never signed on for this kinda bullshit and--

“The Cannery District,” someone says. Reynolds whirls, blade at the ready, and only barely relaxes when he sees the newcomer is dressed in whaler leathers like his own. The man is short and dark-skinned, with sharp black eyes and a lilting Serkonan accent. He’s new, Reynolds thinks, joined up with a few others when Daud had some business at sea a while back. He’s seen him around the mess once or twice, but never actually talked to him. 

“Cut your hair and ask for Ellie Lambert,” the man says. “As long as no one looks too closely, you will pass as boys long enough to reach safety.” He smiles. “It seems no one looks too closely in Dunwall.”

To Reynolds’ surprise, he takes off his belt and strips out of his outer coat, hands it over to the older girl. “Here. This will help with the disguise until it is no longer necessary.”

One coat’s not going to do them much good. Reynolds sighs and wrestles out of his own outer layer. It’s covered in blood and Outsider knows what else, but given the situation that might not be a bad thing. The girl’s nose wrinkles as she accepts the coat but at least she accepts it, and then she and her companion take turns hacking off each other’s hair. With their newly shorn heads and the oversize leather coats, the knives and their raised hoods--

“Maybe you’ll stand half a chance yet,” Reynolds says grudgingly. He fishes around in his pouches until he digs up a twenty coin and two fives, which he tosses at the older girl. “This should be enough if anyone tries to give you trouble.”

The other Whaler offers up a few route suggestions and Reynolds repeats his advice about the best places to stab someone, and then the girls are hurrying away through one of the many grimy alleys, hunched in their borrowed coats, their arms around each other. Just before rounding the corner, the younger girl, the one in Reynolds’ blood-spattered coat, pauses and looks back. Beneath the fear and determination in her face is an expression of mute relief, and she mouths, _thank you_ before she turns away again. A moment later, they’re both gone.

“Tyros,” the newcomer says.

Reynolds blinks and shakes himself. “What?”

“Tyros,” the man says, all patience. “My name. It’s Tyros. I was on patrol nearby. You are?”

“Reynolds.” He jerks his head in Smith’s direction. “And that’s Smith, although I’m not rightly sure he’s home right now.”

Tyros glances at the disaster around them. Cobblestones made red and wet and dark, bodies everywhere. That the fight occurred during sunset’s slow descent into night has helped them so far, the sooty light of dusk graying out their surroundings and making the overall chaos difficult to see, but soon the harsh blue streetlights of the city will spark on one by one and there will be no hiding it then. Unless they clear out and clear out now, the Watch’ll catch up with them right soon. Reynolds watches these thoughts flicker over Tyros’ expressive face, and also catches the exact moment he realizes just how big a problem this Smith thing is.

‘Cause Smith...Smith isn’t going to leave. Not if he has no idea where the fuck they are, not if he has no idea what the fuck they’ve done.

“How often does he--” Tyros begins, and Reynolds snaps, “I don’t _know_ , all right, this is the first time I’ve worked with the guy and it ain’t exactly going how I thought it would.”

They both look at Smith, who’s dragging one of the bodies towards the crates stacked at the far end of the docks as if hiding it there will somehow mask what they’ve done. He looks purposeful enough, but there’s a creepy, unsettling blankness in him Reynolds doesn’t like. Wherever Smith is in his head, it sure as the Void ain’t here.

Their mistake, Reynolds thinks later, is that they tried to touch him in that state. It’s a mistake they never make again. One moment, Tyros is cautiously moving forward, hand outstretched as if he’s going to take Smith’s elbow and lead him away, his voice low and calm as he says, “Come, my friend, we need to leave this place before someone sees, it’s not safe--” and the next moment he’s flat on his back, one of Smith’s knives driving down towards his right eye. He manages to hold Smith off, but barely; even from where he is Reynolds can see his clenched jaw and straining muscles, the way his arms are shaking from the effort of keeping the knife from descending those final horrifying centimeters.

Smith’s expression never changes. That’s the worst part. Tyros looks equal parts shocked and terrified and Reynolds is pretty sure his own face is doing something similar, but Smith is simply an intensely focused void, eerie and awful and strange.

“Shit!” Reynolds blinks in and hauls Smith off, yelps when he gets a wild slash across his chest for his trouble. Hurts like a sonofabitch for all it was uncoordinated, and he can only be glad Smith wasn’t making his best effort otherwise he might’ve laid Reynolds open to the bone. Tyros promptly rolls away and stumbles to his feet. He’s wide-eyed and uncertain, and Reynolds suspects their thoughts are running along similar lines: _Do we have to bring him down to get him back to base?_

He doesn’t want to. He really and truly doesn’t want to.

“No more!” Smith yells at them. For a confused moment Reynolds thinks he’s talking about him and Tyros ganging up on him, but that doesn’t exactly fit because Smith is still looking through him like he doesn’t know who Reynolds is and he sounds near tears and this is fucked, this is beyond fucked, no wonder everyone ditches Smith when he tells them to. “No more, no more, no more children, no _more_ ,” and just like that, Reynolds gets it.

_“He says Smith was covered in enough blood for four men. Says he was calm as anything. Says he actually bared his throat for Daud’s blade.”_

Reynolds’ stomach hurts.

“Stand down, Overseer,” he says.

Smith bares his teeth.

“I’m not an Overseer anymore,” he snarls. Now his expression changes, twisting into something hard and ugly and dark, something private and terrible he and Tyros have no business seeing. “‘Restrict the errant mind before it becomes fractious and divided. Can two enemies occupy the same body? No, for the first will direct it one way, and the second another, until...until...’”

He trails off, and it’s Tyros who finishes the catechism for him. “‘Until they stumble into a ditch. Likewise, two contrary thoughts cannot long abide in a man’s mind, or he will become weak-willed and..." His gaze cuts to Reynolds, his expression drawn and unhappy. "And subject to any heresy.’”

Reynolds swallows hard and meets Smith’s eyes. Feels like he’s staring down a wolfhound, unsure if it’s going to back off or bite. “You got an errant mind there, Smith?” he says, very softly.

Smith blinks a few times. Clarity’s creeping in while fear and anger and fire wither away, and what’s left behind is a big, exhausted man with bloodstained clothes and haunted eyes. He knows, Reynolds thinks. That he went away in his head, and why. He knows. The epiphany leaves him hollow.

All Smith says is, “Not anymore.”

*

He’s still worryingly quiet when they get back to the base, but Reynolds tries not to let that concern him. They’ve got bigger problems now: namely, Montgomery, whose initial look of surprise at seeing them back so soon is quickly melting into something hard and angry and suspicious. 

“Target’s dead,” Reynolds says, cutting Montgomery off right as the man opens his mouth to ask what the fuck they’re doing and/or why they’re covered in blood. Just to be on the safe side, he adds, “Whoops.”

“‘Whoops,’” Montgomery repeats in disbelief. There’s a little vein on the side of his forehead beginning to throb dangerously. “That’s what you have to say for yourselves? Fucking ‘ _whoops_ ’?”

Reynolds shrugs. “Figured if I said sorry, you wouldn’t believe me.”

Montgomery takes a deep breath. “You -- you had _orders_ \--” and then cuts himself off when he apparently notices Tyros for the first time. “Wait. What’s Santino doing with you?”

“I was passing by and Reynolds looked as if he could use the assistance,” Tyros says, the half-truth falling from his tongue sweet and easy as good Serkonan wine. 

Montgomery’s face goes tight and pinched, and in a flat voice he says, “You mean ‘Smith’ needed the assistance. Or ‘they.’”

“I mean exactly what I said,” Tyros says stubbornly, and because they’re already in this neck-deep Reynolds adds, “Smith had nothing to do with it.”

The man in question stirs, as if he’s just now realized the way Tyros and Reynolds are directing the conversation and he’s determined to put a stop to it, and Reynolds takes a risk and clamps a hand right above Smith’s elbow and digs his fingers in hard as he dares. Now that Reynolds’ outer coat is gone, Smith is the filthiest of them all, covered in dirt and sweat and messy streaks of drying blood; the lie is a painfully obvious one, but as long as Smith doesn’t contradict them they can stick to it. Take the fall, just this once, because the idea of Smith getting punished for this sticks in Reynolds’ craw worse than an errant fish bone.

Montgomery blinks once, long and slow. “Really.”

“Indeed.” Tyros’ smile is white and sunny and guileless, wide enough that Reynolds catches a glimpse of one or two gold teeth. “He is entirely innocent in this matter, I assure you.”

“Uh-huh,” Montgomery says, patently not buying it, and Smith says, “I...I think--” and Reynolds hisses, “ _shut it_ ,” and there’s a sudden _whomph_ of displaced air and Daud is abruptly _right there_ , tilting his head to observe the three of them with calm, reptilian eyes.

“Is there a problem, Montgomery?” he says. His gaze drifts from Reynolds to Tyros to Smith, and lingers there long enough that Reynolds has the mad urge to shove the other man behind him just so Daud will stop looking at him.

“Yes,” Montgomery snaps. “Yes, as a matter of fact, there’s a fucking problem. These three have seen fit to murder a target you deemed eyes-only, and now they have the unremitting _gall_ to--”

“Ah, yes,” Daud says. “Rackham. And here I thought you two--” He places not-so-subtle emphasis on the word “two,” and on the other side of Smith Tyros shifts uneasily. “--were well-suited to this particular assignment. What happened, exactly?”

Reynolds launches into an explanation before Smith can even draw breath, Tyros providing supplemental commentary when Reynolds draws a blank on how to spin the overall situation. He glosses over Smith’s bald flaunting of their initial orders and spares only the briefest mention for what became of the girls after, and much to his relief Daud doesn’t press the issue. Daud, it seems, is far more concerned with the Bleeding Dogfish connection, and exactly how clear Rackham’s involvement had been in the whole affair.

“He was fuckin’ _haggling on the price_ , all right?” Reynolds finally snarls in frustration. “I’d say he was pretty damn aware of the situation. Your client’s blackmail target was buyin’ and sellin’ girls that didn’t want to be bought or sold, and--” 

He breaks off, suddenly confused. Daud is--

Daud’s _smiling_.

“You knew,” Tyros says. His lilting voice is soft and unhappy. “What this man was doing. You already knew.”

“Suspected,” Daud clarifies. “It wasn’t confirmed.”

Sure as shit’s been confirmed now, Reynolds thinks, and out loud he says, “But--”

“It’s a shame he’s dead, of course,” Daud continues, as if Reynolds hadn’t spoken. “Seeing as I was quite explicit about this mission being one where neither of you engaged the target in any way. After all, the client desired the man alive, and now your actions have compromised my relationship with the client. I take pride in my work, gentlemen. I take pride in this organization. And it doesn’t reflect well on me, on _us_ , when my men go off half-cocked to take matters into their own hands as they see fit.”

Blood pounds dully in Reynolds’ ears. Bile’s rising hot and sour in the back of his throat, and it takes a moment for him to realize his hands are aching due to his fists bunching of their own accord. Next to him, Smith’s head is down. His cheeks are red, and Reynolds is standing close enough that he can feel the other man shaking. _Don’t say anything_ , he pleads silently. _Don’t you fucking say anything. Don’t let him know it was you_.

To Reynolds’ utter shock, the next voice he hears is Tyros’. “And your client’s opinion means so much to you, does it?” Still quiet, still unhappy, but there’s a ringing fury in him that wasn’t there a moment ago. “Your client must have known, after all, what this man was up to. What he was doing. He would not have tried to blackmail him otherwise. That you would value his good opinion over--”

The look Daud gives Tyros is one of intense scrutiny. There’s surprise in it, and no small amount of satisfaction, but overlying it all is something deeply calculating that makes Reynolds nervous.

“Yes,” Daud says, his voice mild. “I imagine my client must’ve known about Rackham’s business long before he secured my services, and I imagine he must’ve had his reasons for not informing me ahead of time.” His smile is small and hard and cold. “Just imagine how frightened he’ll be once he learns the man is dead,” and the entire grand scope of Daud’s plan comes crashing over Reynolds in a horrifying rush.

He’d been set up. Right from the fucking _start_. This entire thing--

Daud straightens, turns to Montgomery. “Half-rations for Santino and Reynolds for the next day,” he says crisply. “Seeing as they continue to insist they were the only ones involved in this travesty of an assignment. And three days of latrine duty for Reynolds, since he was apparently the one who instigated the confrontation.”

He meets Reynolds’ glare head-on, daring him to protest. Reynolds sets his jaw and refuses to give him the satisfaction.

“Yessir,” Montgomery says tightly. “Anything else?”

“No,” Daud says. “No, I believe that will be all. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to set up a meeting with our client. He and I have some important matters to discuss.” 

The moment Daud disappears, the now red-faced Montgomery kicks over a chair. “Get out,” he barks. “Get out of my fucking sight, all three of you. Just. Go, just fucking go, get the _fuck_ out.”

Looks like Montgomery figured out his own role in the setup. If Reynolds was inclined towards charitable notions he might feel bad for the man, but he’s not feeling particularly charitable at the moment. What he feels is pissed off, and _used_.

Smith doesn’t flinch when Reynolds grabs his arm again. Doesn’t flinch when Reynolds growls, “Me and you need to have a fuckin’ _talk_ ,” right in his ear. Doesn’t flinch when Reynolds drags him to the dormitories via transversal and shoves him, when Reynolds’ second shove sends him right into the wall, when his shoulders hit much too hard and dust and bits of ceiling plaster rain down into his short, dark hair. All he does is _take_ it, and this makes Reynolds’ fury ratchet so tight it’s practically choking.

“He told you to do it,” Reynolds says.

Smith says, “No." 

Reynolds wants to grab his shoulders and shake him hard enough to make his teeth fall out of his freakish lying head.

“He told you to do it,” Reynolds says again, “he must’ve, you -- you stupid fucking bastard, you heard him, us killin’ Rackham was the plan from the very start and that means he _told you to do it_ , you fuckin’ _set me up_ \--”

A little voice in the back of his mind points out that Smith tried to send him away before the killing started, but Reynolds hadn’t listened. 

He doesn’t need to listen to the little voice either.

Smith just says, “No.”

Reynolds wants to _hurt him_.

“Reynolds.” Someone’s pulling at his arms, dragging him away from the other man. “Stop. Stop it.”

Tyros, his dark eyes wide and worried, his grip like a vice on Reynolds’ forearm. “Stop it,” he says again. “Just look at him, Reynolds. He’s telling the truth. _Look at him_.”

Slumped the way he is against the wall, Smith looks like a puppet whose strings have been cut. Slouched, head lowered, his posture heavy with resignation and defeat. He looks, in short, like a man who knows exactly how he’s been used...because this isn’t the first time it’s happened.

Reynolds feels cold. The pungent taste of bile is back, sitting thick at the back of his tongue. He wishes, almost, that Daud _had_ given Smith separate kill orders. Far worse that Daud knows Smith’s damage inside and out, to the point where he could anticipate what would happen if he sent Smith into a situation like that. It's cold, and deliberate. It sits wrong, painful as a busted rib, but the worst part is it’s the likeliest explanation he can come up with. 

Carmichael’s words filter back into his mind unbidden: the way he’d described Smith as an attack hound that kept slipping its leash, good if you point him in the right direction but not exactly reliable.

The man was wrong about one thing, he thinks: Smith is probably the most reliable attack hound anyone’s ever owned. Certainly Daud knew that when he pointed Smith and his issues right at a man he suspected of trafficking teenagers and adolescents. Telling him “eyes only” and throwing someone like Reynolds along with him, someone new enough that he’d rather cut and run when Smith told him to because to do otherwise might jeopardize his standing. 

Daud had always intended for Rackham to wind up dead. He just hadn’t informed anyone else of that.

“How many times?” Reynolds says. The words come out rough and miserable. “How many times has this happened?”

Smith doesn’t say anything, which is answer enough. Reynolds curses and slams the heel of his palm against the wall.

How many times has Smith forgotten who or where he was, how many times has he relived the moment he effectively became an ex-Overseer? How many times has Daud pointed Smith’s trauma at a problem because it nicely coincided with his intended result? He and Tyros and Daud can’t be the only ones who know, he thinks. Smith’s been around for several years. They can’t be the only ones who’ve seen him get lost like that--

And then he remembers the way Smith keeps himself apart, the way the others talk about him in hushed undertones. The suspicious looks he gets for reciting his Strictures, the rumors swirling around his past history with the Abbey.

Of course no one else knows, Reynolds thinks dully. Everyone treats him like he’s feral. No one’s ever gotten close enough.

“You’re better than this,” he says aloud. Smith’s head snaps up. His eyes are wide and glassy, hold in them the sort of far-seeing stare that once would’ve made Reynolds back up a few steps and reach for the hilt of a well-hidden knife. Now, all Reynolds can see is the misery behind the look, the slump of Smith’s big shoulders and the flat hopelessness in his expression. “You deserve better than what he’s makin’ you do.”

Smith’s throat works. Finally, he says, “He’s not _making_ me do anything. I chose this. I chose to disobey. I--”

“He deliberately put you in a situation where you would have no choice but to act as you did,” Tyros says from just behind Reynolds’ shoulder. Reynolds is profoundly, deeply grateful he’s there. That he can put this mess into words where Reynolds can’t, because Reynolds is more accustomed to applying sharp objects to his problems rather than talk ‘em out like normal folk. “Had he intended his orders to be followed to the letter, you are not the man he would’ve assigned to do so. Not for this situation, not for this target. Surely you see that.”

“Everyone else leaves when you tell ‘em, don’t they?” Reynolds says. “Bet you just kept bucking orders and scaring the shit out of everyone assigned to work with you, and it never occurred to you to wonder why Daud never gave you more’n a slap on the wrist every time you up and murdered people you weren’t supposed to murder.”

“I _disobeyed_ ,” Smith repeats, more desperately this time, hands clenched and eyes overbright, knotted tighter than a sailor’s rope. It’s like he needs to believe he was wrong as opposed to wronged, and this of all things is what makes Reynolds’ anger drop from a boil to a simmer. Because this fucked up mess isn’t about him -- it’s about Smith, about the pain in his voice and despair in his eyes. It’s about the sheer awful _unfairness_ of it.

“You were used,” Tyros says flatly. “It’s not disobeying if you behaved exactly as he intended.”

“‘Pity not the man born unto the lowliest station,’” Smith recites, his voice monotone, “‘for his hands are as necessary to the shaping of the world as those of any highborn. Do we pity the scythe for not being a pitchfork? Do we pity the plow for not being a sword? The most valuable tool is one bent towards its intended function, and--’”

He breaks off when Reynolds hits the wall again.

“No,” Reynolds growls. “No, don’t you fucking dare, don’t you _dare_ talk about yourself like that. You ain’t a scythe, all right? You ain’t a scythe, or a pitchfork, or a plow or a hound or a pistol. Don’t fuckin’ talk about yourself like you’re a tool. You’re not. You’re a person. You’re better than that.”

It’s the longest and most emphatic speech he’s made thus far in their company. By the end of it his cheeks are hot and he kinda wants to punch the wall again, but he can’t, because they’re staring at him. Tyros’ expression is unreadable. Smith merely looks stunned.

“You don’t even know me,” Smith says, after the silence has stretched out long enough that Reynolds is seriously considering transversing somewhere else. To another district, perhaps, or maybe all the way back to Morley.

“Don’t matter,” Reynolds says sullenly. “You don’t have to know a person to know it ain’t right to treat ‘em like a _thing_.”

Smith looks away, blinking rapidly. The corners of his mouth are trembling, just a little, and it makes something in Reynolds’ chest ache, the way the girls down by the docks made him ache earlier. He’s tired and he’s filthy and he’s not sure he’s ever going to get into Daud’s good graces, not sure he even _wants_ to anymore, but all that pales against Smith’s utter misery. 

It’s not right. That’s what rankles him most. Smith would probably jump off Kaldwin’s Bridge if Daud told him to, but that doesn’t make it okay.

“C’mon, look,” Reynolds says finally. “Don’t -- don’t make it a big deal or anything. Just stick with me and Tyros, and it’ll be fine.”

If Tyros is at all surprised that Reynolds has conscripted him into Smith-wrangling, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he just cocks his head and says, “It’s the Seventh, yes? That’s what grounded you again?”

Smith swallows thickly, but finally seems to get ahold of himself. “Yes,” he says. “That’s why I still recite them. They’re...they’re reminders.”

Reynolds frowns. “Reminders of what?”

The smile that appears on Smith’s blood-streaked face is small and startling and _beatific_. It makes him look like an entirely different person. “Of what I’m not.”

Tyros claps Smith on the shoulder. “What you are, my friend, is a good man.” He cuts a glance at Reynolds, and adds, “You too.”

Outsider’s _balls_. “Oh, fuck you,” Reynolds mutters, embarrassed. “Look, charming as this lovefest is, I smell like a slaughterhouse and Smith does too. I’m gonna go muck out the fucking latrines so I can get cleaned up already.” 

“I’ll help,” Smith says.

“Me too,” says Tyros.

Reynolds eyes them, glowering. “I don’t need your help.”

“And yet here we are,” Tyros says cheerfully, “providing it anyway.”

“I owe you,” Smith says, far more quietly and far more seriously, and because Reynolds really doesn’t want to get back on that subject again he doesn’t bother arguing further. If they want to get their hands dirty, that’s their own damn business.

*

He tells himself he doesn’t care, that Smith’s damage is his own, that it has nothing to do with him. He goes to bed sore that night, smarting from the fight and Smith’s wild slash at his chest, his belly complaining over the half-rations, his lower back a mess of aching knots from shoveling the damn latrines. After several hours of restless tossing on his narrow cot, he finally gives up and heads to the roof.

Smith’s already up there, as Reynolds half-suspected he’d be. Smith doesn’t keep the kinds of hours normal people keep.

Smith doesn’t say anything when Reynolds approaches the edge of the building, but he shifts over just a smidge to make room. He looks even more haggard in the moonlight than he does during the day, and that’s saying something. Dunwall stretches out below them, dark save for the occasional lit window and the crackling blue-white lines of the streetlights. Smith’s shoulders are hunched, his eyes shadowed.

“I never thanked you,” he says finally. “For. For not...”

 _Running_ , Reynolds thinks. _Abandoning me. Using it against me. Telling the others. For not leaving me there, stuck in the wretched dark of my own head._

Smith was right about one thing earlier: whatever else he is, he’s absolutely not an Overseer anymore.

He’s one of _theirs_ now.

Reynolds leans sideways. Bumps Smith’s shoulder with his own, stays there when tension winches out of the man ever so slightly.

“Anytime,” he says quietly, and means it.

**Author's Note:**

> Reynolds telling the girls to get the other guy with the "pointy bit" is a blatant Game of Thrones/Song of Ice and Fire reference. His later comments about not treating people like things is a quiet little homage to Terry Pratchett, Discworld, and the most excellent Granny Weatherwax.


End file.
